Brazil’s Fantaspoa Fantastic Film Festival has announced that, because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, its sixteenth edition will be held online and completely free of charge, with more than 110 genre features and shorts geo-blocked to Brazilian viewers but with digital versions of the festival’s popular lectures and masterclasses available free to cinema lovers around the world. The event is slated to run July 24th through August 2nd, 2020.
Fantaspoa joins other genre-film festivals around the world in moving to a virtual version this year in these uncertain times. The fest’s move comes courtesy of an unprecedented partnership with Darkflix, a Brazilian video streaming service aimed at fantastic genre productions.
The opening film of Fantaspoa’s sixteenth edition will be Keola Racela’s Porno, which has already won over audiences at SXSW, Fantasia, Sitges, and FrightFest. You can read Horror Fuel’s review here.
Porno
The closing films of the festival’s sixteenth edition will be dual co-productions of Fantaspoa Productions: Skull: the Mask and The Pandemic Anthology, both of which recently World Premiered at the Chattanooga Film Festival. Horror Fuel’s review of Skull: The Mask can be found here.
Skull: The Mask
Another Horror Fuel favorite announced during Fantaspoa’s first-wave announcement is Panamanian shocker Diablo Rojo PTY, reviewed here.
Diablo Rojo PTY
Following is the official press release for this year’s edition of Fantaspoa. The press release notes that the news first appeared on Deadline.com.
Originally scheduled to take place as a live event in May of 2020, the sixteenth edition of Fantaspoa had been postponed because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Due to a worsening of the virus in Brazil and a sharp increase in COVID-related deaths there, festival organizers have ultimately decided that a live festival in 2020 would not be possible and have chosen to migrate to a virtual edition.
Scheduled to begin on July 24th and run until August 2th, 2020, the sixteenth edition of Fantaspoa will turn Darkflix into center stage for several Latin American Premieres. The festival program will feature more than 110 shorts and feature films from more than 35 countries. Each title will have a cap of 5,000 views, and all will be geo-blocked to Brazilian viewers.
In addition, interactive Q&As will accompany several livestreamed films, and the festival will host digital versions of its popular lectures and masterclasses – all of which will be available for free to genre fans around the world. Between its free films for Brazilian audiences and free events accessible to all, Fantaspoa now proudly hosts the largest online initiative of any film event in Latin America – and hopes that its attempts to combat social isolation through digital gatherings will be seen as a small but valiant way to help fight this unprecedented pandemic.
OPENING FILM, CLOSING FILM, AND SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
The opening film of Fantaspoa’s sixteenth edition will be Keola Racela’s PORNO, a charming mix of humor and horror that will celebrate its Latin American premiere at Fantaspoa after wowing audiences at SXSW, Fantasia, Sitges, and FrightFest.
The closing films of the festival’s sixteenth edition will be dual co-productions of Fantaspoa Productions: SKULL: THE MASK and THE PANDEMIC ANTHOLOGY, both of which recently World Premiered at the Chattanooga Film Festival. The long-awaited sophomore film from Armando Fonseca and Kapel Furman, SKULL was hailed by audiences and critics in its recent debut. The film follows a supernatural serial killer out for revenge, and fueled by an otherworldly pre-Columbian power. Also very well-received out of Chattanooga, THE PANDEMIC ANTHOLOGY brings together thirteen stories about the COVID-19 pandemic, shot entirely while in quarantine, making the dark anthology a surprising portrait of this unique moment.
Crazy World
The sixteenth edition of Fantaspoa proudly celebrates Ugandan filmmaker Isaac Godfrey Geoffrey Nabwana – also known as IGG Nabwana – and his company, Wakaliwood, with its annual Special Achievement Award. Deeply passionate about cinema, IGG learned the art of filmmaking by watching tutorials on the internet and has directed over forty action movies within the past fifteen years. All of his films are produced in the Ugandan slum where he lives, with minimal budgets, small staff, and tons of creativity. Acclaimed worldwide, Nabwana is considered a unique artist with a true signature to his works, having built his own studio, generated jobs, and formed a film community and rabid audiences in a place with no filmmaking tradition. At the sixteenth edition of Fantaspoa, festival audiences will have the unique opportunity to watch Nabwana’s CRAZY WORLD, which received a standing ovation at 2019’s Toronto International Film Festival.
ADDITIONAL TITLES ANNOUNCED
Ibero-American Section
Toxic
The festival will present the already-acclaimed Argentinian films TO KILL A DRAGON and ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS, in addition to the recently-premiered TOXIC. A horror thriller about a girl who returns to a village two decades after being reported missing, TO KILL A DRAGON is the third feature from Jimena Monteoliva, whose talent is already known by Fantaspoa audiences. ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS will celebrate its Brazilian Premiere at Fantasia after having been praised and awarded at festivals worldwide. This dark tale about three brothers who claim their father’s inheritance was directed by Martín Blousson and Macarena García Lenzi. TOXIC, Ariel Martínez Herrera’s debut feature, seems more urgent than ever, as it focuses on a couple trying to survive in a world plagued by a pandemic of insomnia. Also in the Ibero-American selection, DIABLO ROJO PTY will have its Brazilian Premiere at Fantaspoa. Directed by Sol Charlotte and J. Oskura Nájera, it is the first horror feature film made in Panama, and tells the story of a bus driver who is the victim of a mysterious spell.
International Competition
These first eight international titles showcase the continuing diversity of Fantaspoa’s sensational programming.
Ghost Master
Selections include ENTWINED, STRANGER, GHOST MASTER, JAMES VS. HIS FUTURE SELF, LIMBO, and RESIN, all of which have all previously screened – however GHOST MASTER has only played in Latin America. These sensational, acclaimed titles have screened everywhere from TIFF and Göteborg to Sitges.
A co-production by Greece and the United Kingdom, ENTWINED tells the story of a doctor who inexplicably finds himself enchanted by a mysterious girl from a remote village. The feature earned Minos Nikolakakis the top prize in Greek cinema – the Hellenic Film Academy Awards – for best debuting director. The science fiction genre will be represented by the Ukrainian STRANGER, about an inspector who works a case about sinister disappearances, and Canada’s JAMES VS. HIS FUTURE SELF, a comedy about one of humanity’s greatest fantasies: time travel. GHOST MASTER, from Japan, is a mix of horror and comedy heavily influenced by manga and was awarded as best film at Fantasporto 2020. Germany’s LIMBO and the Danish RESIN are thrillers – the first telling the story of an executive who discovers a dangerous money laundering network, and the second taking place in an isolated forest, where a teenager who lives with her parents begins to question her family’s isolated way of living.
James vs. His Future Self
South Africa’s psychedelic FRIED BARRY – about a drug addict who is abducted by aliens – will celebrate its Latin American Premiere at Fantaspoa. The festival’s Brazilian audience will also have the privilege of being the first audience in the world to experience South Korea’s SALVATION, reassuring Fantaspoa’s continued relevance within the festival circuit. A cop thriller, the film tells the saga of a special agent who ends up in a mysterious retreat that worships a goddess in the body of a child
FANTASPOA 2020’S FIRST WAVE OF TITLES CONSISTS OF THE FOLLOWING FILMS:
CRAZY WORLD (I.G.G Nabwana, Uganda, 2019)
DIABLO ROJO PTY (Sol Charlotte and J. Oskura Nájera, Panama, 2019)
ENTWINED (Minos Nikolakakis, Greece/United Kingdom, 2019)
FRIED BARRY (Ryan Kruger, South Africa, 2020)
GHOST MASTER (Paul Young, Japan, 2019)
JAMES VS. HIS FUTURE SELF (Jeremy LaLonde, Canada, 2019)
LIMBO (Tim Dünschede, Germany, 2019)
THE PANDEMIC ANTHOLOGY (Various directors, Brazil, 2020)
PORNO (Keola Racela, United States, 2019)
RESIN (Daniel Borgman, Denmark, 2019)
ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS (Martín Blousson and Macarena García Lenzi, Argentina, 2019)
SALVATION (Lee Chang Moo, South Korea, 2020)
STRANGER (Dmitriy Tomashpolskiy, Ukraine, 2019)
SKULL: THE MASK (Armando Fonseca and Kapel Furman, Brazil, 2020)
TO KILL A DRAGON (Jimena Monteoliva, Argentina, 2019)
TOXIC (Ariel Martínez Herrera, Argentina, 2020)
